Zombies

Zombies Attacks

Zombies are all at once an innocuous and highly annoying new race for The Sims 3 Supernatural. One of the only races unable to be created outright in Create A Sim (the other being Mummies), Zombies are a pain in the neck, but not nearly as bad as they could be. There is a game-breaking bug related to Zombies in unpatched versions of the game, so be sure to check out the end of this section for details.

Zombies typically make their appearance only during full moons. When that happens, up to four Zombies will pop out of the ground on any lot of the currently controlled Sim. This likely will happen at your home lot, unless your controlled Sim is in the criminal career track. However, if you're having a late-night party, be warned: they can pop up on any community lot, which will cause you some headaches outdoors. Zombies will spawn on any terrain tile randomly, so fencing off an area won't stop them (but it will trap them for the night because they can't operate gates or doors).

Zombies have few of the powers they have in conventional fiction. They can't run, they can't enter houses (unless it's a controllable zombie), they can't spread the Zombie curse, and they can't do any real damage to Sims. They can and will destroy crops, however, thus showing their real threat in The Sims 3 universe.

Defending Against Zombies

Assuming normal circumstances, when Zombies appear, they will immediately seek out nearby Sims to attack. Such attacks can be interrupted merely by canceling the action in the action queue if it's happening to your controlled Sim. If a zombie targets a townie, you can still interrupt the attack before it starts by performing literally any social interaction you wish against the zombie.

If all the Sims on the lot are engaged, or all the Sims are indoors, the Zombies will then target any crops that happen to be outside. All growable things can be targets, from simple tomato plants to money trees. If the zombie starts to attack it, you'll have about 30 seconds (30 in-game minutes) to interact with the zombie in any way. Any command will force the zombie to stop, even if you immediately then cancel whatever you wanted to do.

That said, it's pretty tough to play defense if you're attacked by the full horde of four. Unless you have as many controllable Sims in your home as you have zombies, it's tough to try to interrupt them all. If the zombies are allowed to fully consume a crop, the crop will die and cannot be restored; it will need to be replanted.

The Zombies' obsession with crops can put a serious strain on several different careers. It can completely shuts down a self-employed gardener, and it can make it tougher for Alchemists to gather their ingredients. However, you can purchase the new plant pots in Buy Mode to allow you to grow crops indoors. They cost at minimum $200 apiece though, so you probably can't afford too many of them with a Generation-1 family.

As a less expensive alternative. You can surround your garden with the Graveyard Fence and the Graveyard Gate, lock the gates to everyone but those in your household. This will prevent them from getting to your crops. The other fences I've tried didn't work.

Unfortunately, there is no other way to stop the Zombies. Magical spells have normal effects but nothing special or different. For example, if you have a Witch cast Fire Blast on a zombie, its skin will change to the "Signed" skin, but it doesn't actually hurt the zombie. Zombies, strangely enough, can die from old age, and you'll see on occasion a zombie pop up during a full moon just to immediately die.

Your one saving grace can come in the form of Alchemy or high-level Spells. Using a Potent Cure Elixir or Sunshine Charm on a zombie will convert it back to a normal human Sim. However, the game will continue to spawn new Zombies during full moons if there aren't enough.

Controlling a Zombie

Zombies can be controlled through a couple different means. If you have a Genie in the family, you can order the "Ensorcel Sim" command to add the zombie to your family for a few Sim hours. If you have Free Will off, you can at least keep the zombie from causing too much damage.

If you want to intentionally control a zombie, you can convert a Sim (i.e., a family member) by throwing a Zombification potion at them. The change is immediate, and they'll take on a different physical appearance.

Unlike all the other Supernatural races, Zombies have no benefits. Though they can operate any object, they're slow, and all social interactions are replaced by zombie attacks or scares, thus shutting them down for any social activities.

Zombie Bug

The following is a confirmed issue from EA, and could potentially break your game. The bug has been patched since retail, so be sure to update your game.

If you save your game at night during a full moon phase, zombies can permanently over-spawn and appear every night, completely shutting down not just farming and gardening, but your ability to have any healthy plants at all. Worse still, this bug is permanent to a corrupted save file.

If any neighborhoods were infected with the bug before the patch, even once the patch is applied, that neighborhood will be overrun, and you’ll need to start a new neighborhood to get around it.